Compare the Effectiveness of Cognitive- Behavior Therapy and Schema Therapy on reducing the cognitive error of pain catastrophizing and increase of pain self- efficacy in Tehranian Patients with Chronic Low Back Pain

 Aims and background: The aim of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of cognitive- behavior therapy (CBT) and schema therapy (ST) on the reduction of cognitive error of pain catastrophizing and increase of pain self- efficacy of Tehranian patients with chronic back pain. Materials and methods: The present study was aquasi-experimental design that conducted in the form of pretest, post-test and 2 months follow-up with control group. In this study, 35 patients with chronic low back pain who were referred to pain specific clinic of Akhtar and Imam Hussein hospitals (AS) and neurosurgery clinic of Imam Hussein hospitals (AS) in Tehran, were selected with purposive sampling method (non-probabilistic). All patients completed Chronic Pain Questionnaire, Catastrophizing subscale of Coping Strategies Questionnaire, Pain Self Efficacy Questionnaire in the pre-test, post-test and 2months follow-up. In addition, the schema therapy group completed the 90-Item Short Form of Young Schema Questionnaire (YSQ-SF) apart from the mentioned questionnaires. Mixed effect regression model using SPSS software was used to analyzing the data. Findings: The results showed that cognitive-behavior therapy significantly reduced catastrophizing cognitive error whereas schema therapy did not have significant impact on the scores of catastrophizing cognitive error. Also cognitive-behavior therapy significantly increased pain self- efficacy and schema therapy noticeably increased pain self- efficacy and there was no significant difference between two methods in terms of impact on pain self- efficacy. Conclusion: According to the result᾿s of present study, cognitive-behavior therapy decrease negative automatic thoughts such as catastrophizing and increase pain self-efficacyin chronic pain patients and schema therapy has acceptable influence on increase pain self- efficacy in chronic pain patients. Therefore probably both two treatment methods can be used as appropriate treatment methods in chronic pain patients.